Whole tissue, LEC and MEC cell fractions were prepared from mammary glands and lysed to obtain purified cell fractions (Macias et al. 2011 (
link)). For preparation of single-cell suspensions for fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), thoracic and inguinal mammary glands were harvested and mammary epithelial single-cell suspensions were prepared as previously described (Harburg et al. 2014 (
link)). All cells for the limiting dilution analysis and basal colony 3-D Matrigel cultures were generated from FACS-purified Lin
−CD24
+CD29
hi (basal) cells. To stain colonies, FACS-purified basal cells were resuspended in 100% Matrigel (Corning) and 5000 cells were plated per 20 μL Matrigel in 8-well chamber slides (Labtek). Colony media (DMEM-F12, 1% FCS, 0.5 μg/mL Hydrocortisone, 1 μg/mL Insulin, 10 ng/mL EGF, 20 ng/mL Cholera toxin, 1% Pen/Strep) was added after Matrigel had solidified, and colonies grown at 37°C in hypoxic conditions. After 7 days in culture, colonies were either paraffin embedded and immunostained or counted, harvested from Matrigel using
BD Recovery Solution (BD), dissociated using 0.05% Trypsin-EDTA, counted and re-plated (for PKH26 and colony passaging assays) (Harburg et al. 2014 (
link)). Colony counts and diameter measurements were performed using Fiji.
Ballard M.S., Zhu A., Iwai N., Stensrud M., Mapps A., Postiglione M.P., Knoblich J.A, & Hinck L. (2015). Mammary stem cell self-renewal is regulated by Slit2/Robo1 signaling through Snail and mInscuteable. Cell reports, 13(2), 290-301.